Improving pronunciation: Using guided reflective journals

Improving pronunciation, in the first instance, needs to be promoted in the classroom where teachers can initiate opportunities for good practice. The use of guided reflective journals is one intervention strategy that may allow both learners and teachers to better position themselves within the context of learning and teaching intelligible pronunciation. This study explores the effectiveness of guided reflective journals to improve intelligibility in a Japanese
higher educational context. Based on qualitative and quantitative methods, the paper evaluates changes in speech over the duration of one semester. In particular, students from an experimental group were asked to record their voice at the beginning and at the end of the semester as part of guided reflective journals 1 and 4. Students from a control group were also asked to record their voice. Three native and non-native speaker raters focused on changes in
prosodic features, such as stress, intonation and pausing. Segmental features were also considered. Results from this study show that the reflective journals served to direct autonomous learning efforts and motivated the participants from the experimental group to improve more than the control group, especially with regard to word stress, intonation and pausing. While this paper aims to address gaps in the literature and promote the teaching and learning of pronunciation in the classroom, further research is needed to explore the use and benefits of guided reflective journals as an independent learning tool to improve pronunciation.